James: In The Trials

Transcript:

The following transcript was completed using AI software. Please note that there may be mistakes.

A little bit heavy of a message, but we really can't get to the meat of James without understanding the first few verses in the book of James. We're only gonna look at four verses this morning. And the title of today's message is In the Trials.

Now, when we hear the word trial, I think we typically think of courtroom, right? We think of a judge, we think of a person standing there, a trial. And that is actually how the word is used, but in a biblical sense, the word trial is really kind of a word that we could understand of going through a great time or period of difficulty, of struggle. Like hardships are coming upon your life.

Metaphorically speaking, we could call it a storm, right? You could imagine yourself, you are in the storm of life. And this could be relationally, it could be financially, it could be with your job, it could be with your family. It could be some other scenario that I haven't even mentioned, you fill in the blank, but that's what a trial is.

It's a prolonged season of suffering. And if you remember from last week, when we talk about the trials here, the people in James are not just like going through kind of a difficult time. Really, I would almost put them as like, this is a great level of suffering that they're enduring because contextually what's happening is Acts chapter eight, verse one, Stephen has been martyred, he's been killed.

And it says that the people have been scattered. The church is no longer just in Jerusalem. They've now been scattered away.

And they're not leaving because they're afraid, they're leaving because they've been persecuted. And I want us to understand this depth because as we read, what we're gonna find in a few minutes is James is not telling them to sit in their sorrows. He's not affirming their difficulty and said he gives them a challenge.

He calls them to something higher, something that can only be found in the Lord in the midst of their suffering. And that's what we're gonna look at today. Now, I think James is one of those books where it'd be really easy to kind of try to sugarcoat this or try to kind of skip over it because again, it can be really heavy.

But here's what I wanna challenge us with today. So if there's kind of a big idea, it's not on the screen, but I just want you to hear this. If you want to show people the faith you have in Jesus Christ, it is not just going to be done through kind words and being nice to people.

Don't hear me wrong. We should share kind words and be nice to people, okay? I think that's like baseline level expectation of Christianity. But there's this, become this mindset, as long as I'm just nice to people and I say polite things and I'm kind, then I'm showing the love of Jesus.

And in some ways, there probably is truth to that. Don't hear me, I'm not discounting it. At the same time, there's a lot of people who don't love God who are really kind to people and who are really nice to people.

But if you want to show people the faith you have in Jesus Christ, it is going to be displayed most when you are going through trials. And James says to have great joy because you know who is walking with you in the midst of that painful experience. So I've told you guys a couple of times, something my pastor always said growing up, you're one of three places in here today.

You're either in the middle of a trial, he would say storm, but I think we can understand it the same way. You're either in the middle of a trial, you're coming out of a trial, or you're about to go into one. It's just how life works.

And so maybe this morning you find yourself and you're like, I'm in the midst of it. Okay, I pray that this encourages you. Maybe you're like, I have just come out of a really hard season and you're like, I don't really need to hear this right now.

I'd say let it be a preparation to your heart because at some point in your future, it could be in the next few days, it could be in the next few months, it could be in the next few years. But you're gonna go through something difficult in your life. Now, I want you guys to hear this for just a micro moment and then we're gonna jump into the text this morning.

There's this weird temptation that we have when we talk about trials, when we talk about going through difficult times, that most people try to do one of two things. We either try to minimize it or we try to elevate it. And here's what I mean by that, that what will end up happening is we're gonna go, well, I'm not suffering as bad as that person, so I kind of downplay what I'm going through, or we do the opposite and we elevate it to where it just basically becomes our entire identity.

We wanna make sure everybody knows we're going through it. I wanna encourage us to this, do not minimize what you're going through. And James chapter five, and yes, we will get there, not in a couple of years, but in a couple of weeks, that ultimately, if you minimize what you're going through, you end up suffering in silence.

And James five says, confess your sins to one another. That if you need healing, ask the elders in the church to pray for you. There's this idea of don't suffer in silence, that if you're going through something, it doesn't mean that we have to play the comparison game.

What I'm going through may be heavier than what you're going through, and vice versa. But we also need to be careful that we don't elevate or make much of our situation more than we do Jesus. If people know more about your situation than they know about how Jesus is walking with you through this, then we've elevated this above God.

And we have to be careful that we don't make our trials an idol. And I know that sounds really weird, but we can, we can elevate it above the Lord. So your trials, hear this, your trials might be someone else's vacation.

I mean, have you ever thought about that? I mean, you, I don't like social media. There's a whole lot of reasons, but part of it is because there's a lot of really sad stories. Like you're scrolling and you're just like, all right, I can't do this anymore.

Like throw the phone away, burn it in the trash, right? We're done with this. Because you're over here like, I'm living somebody else's dream and vacation. And I think we do need those moments sometimes.

We need those moments where we humbly realize like, man, it could be harder. It could be worse. And your trials might also be somebody else's nightmares.

Somebody else might look at your life and go, thank you, Lord. I am so grateful that that's, and again, there's a humility in here. We're not, we're not pointing these things out.

We're not being harsh or critical. We are simply recognizing that there are some people who would, who would pray to God for what our hardships are. And there are some people who, if they saw what we were going through, they would also say the same thing.

So we don't want to elevate our trials, but we don't want to minimize our trials either. Here's what we want to do. We want to do exactly what James says to do.

Go ahead and stand as we honor the reading of God's word. James chapter one, we're going to read verses two through four, and then we're going to jump down to verse 12. So here's what it says.

So again, context, he's reading to a people who are being persecuted for following Jesus. Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effects so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Let's jump down to verse 12.

Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you.

God, we thank you for who you are. And God, I want to take a moment and just acknowledge the fact that there are so many things happening in the lives of the people of our church. I mean, just everything from economic turmoil to just relational chaos, job instability, health issues, just the physical pain we endure in life.

There's so many things, Lord. And we want to be very careful this morning that we don't elevate these trials higher than they should be. And we don't want to downplay these things either, Lord.

We want to do what James says this morning. We want to look and not compare and not use it to judge or to put down other people. We want to look at what we're going through and we want to consider it a great joy.

And not because we have to be happy about our situation, Lord, but we can be joyful and glad and we can have praise to you because you are working all of these things out for our good and for your glory. So God, today, as we hear these words, may our hearts be open and our minds ready to receive your word through the Holy Spirit that he might speak to us today that we might understand what it is you want for us and will accomplish in and through our lives. Give us a greater understanding of who you are through your word today.

God, may we just hear your word and not tune out because we're going through something, but God, with humility, receive what it is you're saying. We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. Amen, hey, you may be seated.

I want us to look at three things this morning. So again, maybe you're like, I'm in the thick of it today. Maybe you're like, I'm coming out of something.

Maybe you're like, I can see on the horizon, right? Something's stirring, something's coming up. Regardless of wherever you're at today, one of the things that we can look at when it comes to the book of James is the words that James tells us, again, is not to elevate our situation. It's not to downplay what we're going through.

It's to this, it's to consider it a great joy. First thing I want us to see is what is our response to trials? I mean, really, what is, like I want you to take a step back for just a second. When you go through something, when something happens to you, what is your default response? And again, rhetorical, just, I mean, think about it.

Oftentimes, here's what I find I do. I like to complain. I don't know about you.

I'm a complainer. I want somebody to validate my situation, so I'm gonna complain. Now, I've learned to complain to God, which is a good starting spot, but that's my bend, right? That's kind of where I default to.

Some of us withdraw. You get lonely, isolated. You disconnect from people, your coworkers.

Some of us just give up. We just quit trying. We just quit putting forth effort, right? Some of us make poor decisions.

This happens a lot, right? All of a sudden, we start going through a trial. We start making decisions as it relates to finances, as it relates to relationships, as it relates to where we go and who we spend our time with, right? We just start making bad choices because we figure, you know what? I'm already in it. Let's just embrace it, and let's just go through it, right? We all have different responses, and yet I would argue that for most of us, if we're being honest, when we think about, and again, I want you to think about for just a second, the hard things that you have gone through in life, not what other people have gone through, what you have gone through, what has been your response? Because James writes to a people who are being persecuted, and again, I want us to understand, this is not persecuted with words.

This is persecuted with actions in prison. Now, this is actually kind of minor persecution compared to where the church will experience in the future, the moment the persecution they're facing is imprisonment and death. Now, in a handful of decades, what will end up happening is beyond just imprisonment and death, and it'll actually start going to torture and mutilation.

That's what the church will face. Right now, though, I just want you to imagine for a second that you're in this context and scenario that because you have said yes to Jesus, that now you are imprisoned, and you are separated from your family, from your community, from your kids. They don't have texting.

They don't have email. You may not even be able to write a letter. That you are stripped away from everything that you know, put into this jail cell to be held on public trial for potential execution, and you may never know what happens to your wife, your kids, your friends, your loved ones ever again.

That's what they're facing. And James comes in, and he says, I want you to consider it a great joy. Not how I would have started off that letter.

Just being, like, in my flesh, that's not how I would have started off. I would have started off with, are you okay, and how are you getting through this? And he says, I recognize what you're going through, right? Because back in verse one, he says, I recognize that you have been scattered. He says, consider it a great joy.

That Greek word consider is hagomeo, or hagome. And here's what is really fascinating. So in, you know, kind of like in English, or I'm sure in Spanish too, one word has multiple meanings.

In the Greek, hagomeo means to account. So kind of adding up the numbers. It means to suppose or think.

But here's what I also love. It means to rule over. So all three of these things are actually used in this context at once.

Consider it great joy. James is saying, I want you to account. I want you to look at your life and see what has the Lord done.

How has he been faithful? If he's walked with you in the past, what is he doing with you right now? I want you to add this up. There's an old hymn, it's called count your blessings. I don't know if you guys have ever heard it.

I grew up singing it, but it's like, it literally just says count your blessings one by one, count your blessings and see what the God has done. That's what he's saying. He's saying, I want you to take a step back.

You look at your situation and that's all you can see. And he says, yeah, I want you to not look at what's happening. I want you to account for what the Lord has done.

He says, I want you to think. So often when it comes to trials, when it comes to difficult situations, we don't think, we react. And we just respond to the next thing.

So what happens next? And we find ourselves just feeling like we're getting punched, right? Like it's some, like a movie, like, you know, like you ever seen those boxer movies, like, right? Couldn't do boxing. Jared does boxing, right? So don't mess with him, he'll beat you up, okay? But couldn't do it, he does it, I love it. At the same time, we just react and we don't think.

And what James is saying, hey, I want you to add up and I want you to dwell on. I want you to think about, I want you to meditate on. And he says this, he says, I want you to have rule over.

You get to choose. Now, hang on, hear me say this. We sometimes react in emotion, okay? And that happens.

Have we all not lost our temper at some point? Have we all not overreacted at some point? Have we all not lost our cool in a moment where you look back and you're like, all right, that wasn't that important. But what he's saying here is not how you initially react. He's saying, you have control and you get to choose how you respond to this situation.

So if you wanna dwell in pity, he's saying you get to choose that. And that's what you're gonna dwell on and that's what you're going to account. He says, if you want to give up, then that's what you choose and that's what you're going to think about and that's how you are going to account.

And so instead of dwelling on our sorrows, having pity for ourselves or quitting, James says, I want you to account joy. I want you to think about joy. I want you to rule over your emotions and have joy.

He says, and he calls it a great joy. This is a joy that can only come from the Lord. And he says, whenever you experience various trials.

So this isn't like, hey, the Lord has done great things. God is good, amen, we can pack up, we can go home. He says, no, I want you to have this joy when you are in the midst of it.

Now, I love this interpretation because he calls it experience various trials. What I love about James is he's not saying only have joy in this exact specific scenario, he's saying various. You and you and you and you and you are all going through something different.

We all have various trials we're walking through, we're coming out of, we're going into. It's not to elevate, it's not to downplay, but it's to consider it a great joy. Anyway, I don't know about you, but my first reaction, my first response is not often to you be like, thank you, Lord.

My pastor that I got to serve at our last church, he was just a very wise, wise man. Honestly, I was too young to appreciate just his sage wisdom. And now I think back to conversations and I'm like, write that down right before we forget.

But he always used to preach this. And I always thought it was great. And he had gone through a lot in his life too, but he always used to say, and I thought this was wonderful.

You don't have to be happy about your situation, but you can rejoice through your situation. God is not saying, hey, be glad that hard things are happening to you. Like the Bible, James is not writing and saying, hey, you know what, throw a parade and a party because bad things are happening.

No, no, no, that's not what he's saying. He's not saying make much of the bad situation, the hardships and the trials and the things that you're walking through. He's saying, but you can have great joy through them.

If this is a pathway and the Lord is walking with you, then you can have great joy. And this joy is found only in the Holy Spirit. So I love it.

Galatians chapter five, verse 22 through 23. You're probably familiar with these verses. It says this, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, you guys know what's next? Joy, it talks about peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There is no such law, or no, there is no law against such things. What we learn is that this joy, this is not, you can't work harder, you can't earn this. It is found only from the Holy Spirit.

It is found only by emptying ourselves of our wants, our prides and desires, and being filled with the Holy Spirit that we may experience this joy. It is not a joy based on our circumstances, but resting in God's sovereignty and goodness. And I know the question always gets brought up.

How can a good God allow bad things to happen? And I just want to take a step back and say, sin entered into the world. Genesis chapter three. This was not God's will, His desire, and yet, here's what I want to take a step back, and again, that question in and of itself makes the situation about us.

And what James is saying, hold on, it's not that it's necessarily a bad question, because I think the Lord will contend with our questions. It's really stepping back and going, it's not the questions you're asking, but how are you choosing to respond to this situation? By saying, why does God allow these bad things to happen? We're essentially saying, woe is me. Why do I have to endure this? Why am I experiencing this? And instead, what James is saying is, listen, ask these questions.

These are good questions to ask, but you need to count it joy whenever you experience these things. Why, number two, there is purpose in the trials. Purpose in the trials.

Verse three says this. James says, because. So again, that conjunction there.

So we're connecting verse two to verse three. It's happening because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. What we learn right here is that God has a purpose in the trial, and it literally says because it is a test of your faith.

Now, I need to point something out because James will talk about this, but we're not in the scripture yet. God does not tempt you to sin, but he does allow trials to test us. Okay, so just very important.

James makes that very clear, that if you're like, I feel like I want to sin, that is not from the Lord. God is not sending that your way. But if you're going through some hard times, that might be from the Lord.

And the hard part is you never really know. Was this a result of my own decisions, or was this the Lord testing me? I couldn't tell you, but he tells us that these trials have divine purpose in God's plan for our life. These are opportunities for growth and to teach us to rely on God's strength and character.

It is not about what you can do. It's about what God has done for you and what God is doing in your life right now. Take your eyes off of your situation and turn them onto Jesus.

So much of the things in our life wouldn't go away, but we would have those things, the peace and joy and the strength, if we would just take our eyes off of ourself for just a few moments and look to Jesus, who the Bible calls the author and perfecter of our faith. The one who was tested in all things and yet failed in none. And so don't dwell on these things.

And again, I'm not saying don't ask questions, but realize that if there is joy, because what you're going through, the Lord is using. Now, you might ask the question, why do I have to go through this and somebody else doesn't? And I think that's a really fair question. And again, your testing or trial might be a vacation to somebody else.

And again, so we're not trying to compare, but we wanna just recognize that for a moment. This is where God's a great mystery. I don't know why you've had to go through what you've had to go... Hold on, English is not my friend right there.

I don't know why you've had to go through what you've had to go through. I don't know why I've had to go through what I've had to go through. I sometimes wish it was easier and I recognize that my life could be so much harder.

I don't know why except to say that God is using these things to build my faith. Peter will also go on to write about this. And this is what I love.

First Peter chapter one, verse six and seven. Peter writes this. Now this is a time, by the way, when Peter's writing this context, Christians are being tortured.

They are literally being tortured. They're being put in cages with starving animals. Now they're being put into the Colosseum for people's entertainment.

There's also stories of Christians being dipped in boiling hot tar and put on stakes and being lit on fire. Okay, so again, the contrast here, you can kind of see the levels of persecution. And so the context doesn't change.

Their situation has changed. It's gotten worse. And yet Peter writes this.

He says, Rejoice, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief. And here's that term again, various trials. So I want you to hear for a second from James first book written in the New Testament.

Again, the chronological look of the Gospels and Acts happened first, but James was really the first to write something. Jumping all the way to the book of Peter, their situation has gotten worse, not better. And Peter writes and he says, you know what? Rejoice, have joy, even if you have to suffer various trials.

He says, verse seven, so that the proven character of your faith, more valuable than gold, which though perishable is refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I can't tell you why you have to go through what you're going through. I can't tell you why you've had to go through what you've gone through, except to say that God has wanted to use this to refine you and to purify you and to strengthen your faith.

Peter will literally say it is more valuable than gold. There is nothing you possess or own that is worth more than your faith in Christ. That's what Peter writes and that's what he says here.

And he also talks about how it's refined by fire. I don't know if you guys know the process of how gold is refined. When they mine it, it doesn't actually look like what we think it looks like, you know, in terms of like jewelry and the bright colors.

What happens is they put it into this big kind of container and they heat it up really, really hot. What ends up happening is as kind of it liquefies, all the imperfections begin to rise to the top and they kind of scrape it off. Now, we would probably go, okay, great.

Here's the problem. There's still impurities in the metal. So what do they do? They heat it up higher.

And guess what happens? More impurities rise to the top and they scrape it off and it gets even hotter and more impurities until it is refined to the kind of the, I know this isn't gold, but to the jewelry that we have, the precious metal that we have, that's how it works. And Peter says in the exact same way, these trials that you're going through, it might feel hot, but there's all of these impurities. There's these things that are not of God.

They're not Christ-like in your life that through these trials, here's what he wants to do. He wants to reveal those, right? Because in the midst of it, you can't see it. He wants to bring them to the top.

He wants to reveal them, not so that you can dwell on them or hold on, right? No one's ever bought impure gold, right? I don't think anyone's ever been like, you know what I really want is a wedding ring made from the really bad parts of the gold. Nobody wants that. Just scrape it off.

And that's exactly what God does with us. He brings these things out, our pride, our arrogance, our sin. He brings them up and out, not so that we can hold onto them, so that he can remove them.

But guess what ends up happening? There's still things. So the heat gets cranked up a little bit. And God says, rejoice in this.

This is what makes Christianity so interesting. Because again, anybody who's ever sold you on a Christianity that's just good feelings and everything will be easy, I'm not saying they lied to you, but my goodness, they for sure did not give you the whole truth. Because it is a process.

And that's part of what making Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior is. It's not just a get out of hell free card. Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna see any suffer in eternity in hell.

But if that's your starting place, then okay, then that's fine. But I want you to see and recognize that following Jesus, truly following Jesus is submitting to his Lordship and saying, Lord, whatever you have for me, any time, anywhere, any place, any situation, so that I might be more like Jesus Christ. And that's what submitting to the Lord is.

And so you're probably in here this morning and you're like, okay, this is not my most favorite message. It's not and it's hard. But this is the mark of a New Testament Christian.

You don't get the things that happen in the book of Acts, the miracles and the messages and the building of the church unless you recognize and understand that these are people who are rejoicing in the suffering that they've gone through. And I promise you, I promise you, one of the greatest testimonies you will ever have is not just, hey, I got a random check in the mail for $1,000. People, those are great stories.

Listen, you need financial provision, pray, I believe the Lord will supply. You need relational help, pray, I believe the Lord will restore. But you're going through something and you choose joy in the midst of that suffering, people are gonna go, what is wrong with you? What is weird about you? What is different? And that is one of the best doorways to open up and say, I don't love what's happening in my life right now, but I love my Lord, I love Jesus.

And I can't imagine walking through what I'm walking through without Him. It's one of the greatest testimonies. And again, we know from the book of Revelation that they defeated the enemy by the blood of the Lamb, it's Jesus Christ on the cross, and by the word of their testimony.

We haven't, we can't be the Lamb. We have Jesus Christ and we have a testimony. And I promise you, God is working these things out in your life.